


When It Had Started

by ShadowDispenser



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Draco Malfoy, Adult Hermione Granger, Australia, F/M, Flourish and Blotts, Travel, good ending, happiness, telling a story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29261889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowDispenser/pseuds/ShadowDispenser
Summary: Draco tells a story to Hermione Granger's parents for what may or may not be the hundredth time.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	When It Had Started

**Author's Note:**

> Not edited.

_When had it started?_ The question turned itself over and over in his mind as he thought of an answer.

He wasn’t sure when it had started. Was it when he had first saw her in the Great Hall in his first year, when her hair was an untamed lion’s mane and her brown, innocent eyes bright with promise and a hunger for learning? Or was it much, much later, when that innocence had been wiped, and all that had been left was a bitter hollowness that could only hope to reflect how she used to be? He wasn’t sure, because he had felt it for as long as he could remember- which was obviously wrong, since he hadn’t met her when he was three, so why did it feel like he did? Was there a small part of him that always knew her? To him, that didn’t make sense. But there was a lot of things that he didn’t understand, so he let it pass.

_She stomped towards him, letter in hand, and the snow falling around them froze, leaving the snowflakes hanging in the air as if they dangled from an invisible string. Draco gulped as he saw his handwriting on the letter as she thrust it at him. “What’s this?” She all but spat, and Draco met her eyes with a cold glare that made her step back, though she was still upset and angry, if not more so._

_“It’s what it says it is.” Hermione gave him a withering look at his words._

_“I can see that.”_

_“Then why ask?” Another glare. Draco started to regret his words when Hermione took a large step forward, putting herself right in his face. Some of the shop owners of Hogsmeade were watching them, making Draco paranoid. What would they say about them?_

_“I’m asking so you have a chance to change your mind, Malfoy.” Draco quirked a brow at his last name? Surely they were past last names?_

_“Well I’m sorry, but I’m not changing my mind.”_

_“You’re not sorry,” she huffs, and goes to turn from him, but he snatches her wrist and tugs her back so she’s facing him again._

_“I know it doesn’t sound like it…” he trails off, and Hermione gestures impatiently for him to continue. “But really, I am. I really am.”_

_And it’s the way his eyes bore into hers that makes her heart falter. She feels his repent, his remorse, as his grey eyes stare into her doe-like ones. The apology that he had spoken felt utterly and truly genuine in that moment, and that was when Hermione knew._

_“So you really are leaving.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“And where are you going to go?”_

_“Anywhere but here.”_

That time, he believed, was when he really felt the tell-tale signs. The butterflies, the warmth in his cheeks… he wondered if Hermione had felt it too. He guessed that she did, otherwise she would never have come with him.

_“How are you feeling?” She asks on the morning that he was leaving._

_“Anxious, but relieved,” he replies truthfully. The two had been in company with each other for a month and three days, sharing a modest apartment in Manchester. Not much had happened, with the exception of them growing close. Draco already longed to relive those memories again, and he hadn’t even left yet. Hermione had been the only one that he could trust, with his parents rotting in Azkaban, and his godfather, Severus Snape, believed dead. His Slytherin friends had left him once his money had dwindled after the war, and Draco had realized that they weren’t his friends- merely people who wanted to be seen with him. But then they didn’t, and Draco had been alone, until he had seen Hermione Granger about a month or two after the war, hanging around at Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley. They had passed cold yet polite pleasantries, but it was only when he almost knocked a bookshelf on her did they start to become friends. It sounded cliché in Draco’s mind, but he didn’t see it any other way. Hermione had her problems to deal with, and they had seemed to bond over their abundance of struggles._

_For Hermione it had been dealing with splitting apart with Weasley, and as a result, closing herself from them. She had also been dealing with the new fame and press who had nearly triples in number after the war, all of them eager to learn the little details of the war hero’s life._

_And for Draco, it had been loneliness, and the newspapers disgracing his name, streaking Death Eater accusations across their pages. While Draco can’t say he wasn’t a Death Eater physically- the mark on his left forearm reminded him of that- he was not a Death Eater mentally. He couldn’t kill. Not Dumbledore, not even a muggle._

_Hermione’s next words bring him back from his mind. “I want to go with you,” she says she fixes his muggle shirt, wiping imaginary dust from it. “And before you say anything, I know I can’t. At least, not at the moment.”_

_“Not… at the moment?” He didn’t hear about this before. Whenever they talked about it, Hermione had never mentioned being able to actually leave. She had just talked about what it would be like, as if it were just a dream in her mind. Until now, it probably had been._

_“Well, I’ll have to wait for the press to find something else to talk about. I can’t just go now… people would look for me. I would rather not be on the run. I’ve experienced it before, and it’s not fun.”_

_“I can imagine.” Draco’s voice was calm, though on the inside his mind raced with a thousand thoughts. Hermione might join him on his quest for solitude, away from the public eye? “I’m guessing you’ll want me to owl you soon after I’ve gone?”_

_“Yes, please. I would like to know where you’ve gone… for when I leave this place.”_

_“All right then.” And the two stared at each other, not knowing what to say next. They shared a look, and Draco couldn’t stop himself before he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. They remained in that embrace for what felt like hours, until Hermione stepped away reluctantly._

_“You’ll miss your flight if you don’t go now,” she sniffles, and Draco’s heart shatters a little. But he knows he must go, so he heads to the door, glancing back one more time at the bookworm he had shared his secrets with._

_And then he left._

Draco remembers that moment with clarity, as if it had happened yesterday. He remembers Hermione’s expression- the utter pain in her face had made him almost want to stay. But he didn’t, and he left her for eight years. It had taken eight years for her to shrug off the press, eight years for them to be reunited. But it had been worth it. It had been worth it to wait eight years just to see how ecstatic she had been when she had met him at the airport- she hadn’t wanted to draw attention to herself, so she had used muggle transport. Just what he had done all those eight years ago when he had left to travel the world. His journey had ended in South Australia, where he had eventually settled down. When Hermione eventually joined him, he had experienced happiness for what felt like the first time.

_“Draco!” Hermione’s face lit up with happiness as she saw him. He looked much older, which made sense since it had been eight years, but Hermione had never expected him to change so much. He looked like a completely new man. His hollow cheeks were now full, and he was now tanned- from the Australian sun, she guessed- and his hair no longer looked so haggard. His smile was vibrant as he looked at her, and he swooped her into his arms, enveloping himself within her warmth. She felt and looked the same since the last time he had saw her. Britain was horrible for her, he realized within that moment, and from then on he would ensure that they never had to return to that mess of a place. He never wanted to return to the place where his life had been crushed, only to be nourished back to health by distance and time- and Hermione, of course. She had saved him from that madness of a country._

_“Hermione,” he breathed in her hair, the smell of green apples and vanilla flooding his senses._

_“Well, we don’t we get out of this airport? I’m sure you want to show me around here,” she grabbed his arm and led him towards the baggage claim. After they collected it, they found a quiet and secluded area where Hermione shrank her luggage to fit in her pocket. After, they wandered the streets of Adelaide, Draco showing Hermione all the different places that they would soon frequent as Hermione adjusted to life in Australia, away from Britain._

“And that’s how we met each other. I don’t really know when it started, to be honest,” Draco spoke, and Hermione looked at him with a smile.

They were at Hermione’s parents house, which had also coincidentally been in Australia. After Hermione had given them their memories back, Mr. and Mrs. Granger had slowly warmed up to them- it had taken a while, after the rift that had been caused between them because of Hermione modifying their memories.

“He says that every time, doesn’t he, Robert?” Mrs. Granger says.

“Yes, he does. Probably because you always ask him the exact question whenever they come over,” Robert grunts.

“Well maybe I like listening to their story, Robert!”

Robert huffs. “Alright then, Monica.”

Hermione laughs at her parent’s exchange. All seems right, and Draco and Hermione are happy. Even after thirty years. Draco and Hermione share a look, one that says, _I love you,_ and the world feels right. For their lives are what they want them to be, and they are away from the people that truly hurt them the most.

And they are together.


End file.
